


Serendipity

by palekwami (angstyfanboi)



Series: Self Care [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Tragedy, Anxiety Disorder, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Denial, Depressed Naruto, Depression, Gaara gets love, Gay Uchiha Sasuke, Gay Umino Iruka, Heavy Angst, High School, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, It Gets Better Project, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Minor Character Death, No Sex, No Smut, No Spoilers, Not Beta Read, OCD, Other, PTSD- A, Pansexual Hatake Kakashi, Platonic Soulmates, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Protective Haruno Sakura, Protective Inuzuka Kiba, Recovery, Romantic Soulmates, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Suicide Attempt, TW: Self Harm, Tattoos, Tsunade is proud of her kids, Violence, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic, ace/aro Gaara, angsty uzumaki naruto, anxious naruto, as in Sasuke only shows up on the last chapter, demisexual Naruto, iruka being THE dad, mild touch-starved naruto, naruto gets better but hes been through some shit, no sakura bashing, ocd naruto, ptsd- a Naruto, suicide ideation, tw: suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:28:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 10,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23109241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angstyfanboi/pseuds/palekwami
Summary: At the age of five, Naruto refuses to accept the mark on his left pinky, refuses to accept there’s someone out there to whom his heart belongs.At the age of twenty, with more marks than he can count, Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto meets the man with the red Uzumaki whirl on his left pinky.
Relationships: Akimichi Chouji & Nara Shikamaru & Uzumaki Naruto & Yamanaka Ino, Gaara & Uzumaki Naruto, Gaara & Uzumaki Naruto & Other(s), Haruno Sakura & Inuzuka Kiba, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka, Tsunade & Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Series: Self Care [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1661053
Comments: 74
Kudos: 304





	1. Five

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for the whole story, some chapter more than others but better safe than sorry. Don't sabotage yourself by allowing your depression to tell you to read and relate, walk away, heal.
> 
> Self-indulgent again? Yes.  
> Written during many depressive episodes again? Yes.  
> Throwing my own self-hatred and reflecting on Naruto to cope? DEFINITELY YES.  
> Constructive criticism is still very much welcomed, homophobia or any hate is not and you will be blocked. 
> 
> ABOUT THE STORY:  
> Everyone is born with a soulmate mark, something that is meaningful in the relationship. Once you meet your soulmate, the mark will fade or even disappear.  
> Aro people have a soulmate too, a platonic one like friends or family relationships. I'll later explain as to keep any spoilers from being told. 
> 
> ALSO: some chapters will be bigger than others, I try not to concern myself over word-count. RIP to my sick head but I'm different.

At the age of five, Naruto is just known as ‘Naruto’ at Konoha Orphanage, sometimes as ‘clown’, many more times as ‘demon’ or ‘monster’ and just as many as ‘brat’, and neither are spoken kindly and softly like a familiar murmur of pressed lips against a pink stained temple. It’s always brash and unforgivingly cold like the edge of a knife that bleeds red like his nose after a punch.

They’re gathered in a circle on the cramped living room, and he’s pressed against Gaara’s side both protectively and seeking protection from his only friend. Iruka-sensei, a young man that volunteers at the orphanage and is just as kind to him as to the other normal kids— kids who aren’t monsters and demons and who don’t deserve to be kicked and punched to make up for their mistakes—, explains to them the marks everyone bears as a prophecy etched onto the skin of who holds the secret to making a heart soar in the way no one else can.

It’s at the age of five, letting his wide pools of blue trace the black contour of the white and red _uchiwa_ over the sensitive flesh on the inside of his left pinky, that Naruto decides he will never meet his soulmate, let alone allow anyone to be closer than a friend— if he is to have any other friends besides Gaara— should be. He is determined to ignore the mark, though it is red and white and a contrast against the bronze hue of his skin, and though everyone tries to pry open his hands, despite him keeping them balled in fists to either defend himself or to just hide the mark long enough to forget of its existence.

He is five, and he is already a broken ceramic vase, of those that when they shatter some of the pieces will be too tiny to see or glue back but still sharp enough to dig into the fleshy tip of one’s fingers to draw blood and pain. No one can love him, so even if he has someone’s mark it doesn’t necessarily mean he will ever be happy, loved, _wanted_. Many tell him he’s a monster, that not even his parents wanted him, so how will this be any different?

So Naruto, _just_ Naruto, forbids himself from longing, _daring_ to wish to ever be happy alongside someone else that not himself. And since he hates himself— hates that he’s a monster, hates that he is dumb, hates that he is lonely and that he is weak to cry for someone to just _hold_ him when the voices are vicious and he is drowning in the darkness he isn’t sure he should either fear or accept as a part of himself— he also forbids himself, this time unwillingly and unknowingly, from loving himself.

He supposes some people aren’t just meant to be loved.


	2. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the age of six, Naruto cries in a dark corner of his overpopulated room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see in the tags, Gaara is aromantic and asexual. In his case his soulmate is platonic, being his adoptive family, and they all have Gaara's mark and their own romantic soulmate mark. If you have any questions feel free to ask and I'll do my best without giving any spoilers.

At the age of six, Naruto, still just Naruto, cries in a dark corner of his overpopulated room while everyone plays outside, ignoring his existence— and maybe even that is a blissful thought: maybe they don’t even remember him at all, the blonde brat the caregivers forego unless to yank his ear or scream at.

Gaara left. Adopted, taken to a family with siblings and loving parents that _want_ him.

Naruto is lost and still weak and a crying mess and he hugs his knees close to his chest and though it makes it even harder to breathe in between racketing sobs, he only has himself to comfort his achy breaky heart while it shatters within his chest so he’ll take any comfort he can give himself. No matter if it’s a dying flame or a whole inferno.

He hates goodbyes, despite this being the first time he ever had to give one. He remembers the red kanji carved red onto his friend’s forehead and he feels like hiding from everything and everyone because love is painful to those who watch it bloom from the sidelines.

What Iruka-sensei forgot to mention is that sometimes, soulmates can be platonic. The fact the family that adopted Gaara all had the kanji for ‘gratitude’ _(‘kansha’_ in a sandy red like veins pumping hot blood) proudly marked onto their foreheads is enough proof on its own.

But Naruto only has the wretched _uchiwa_ staring at him mockingly, daring in the way a demon dares unsuspicious humans to play by its wicked rules to make blood curling, life-altering mistakes that will become their downfall, irrevocably.

He hates himself and the hatred burns deeper and higher and hotter than the flimsy comfort he so desperately offers himself. He clings to the warm pool of red with his blunt nails and blunt teeth and wishes his body was just as monstrous as people repeatedly say it is, for everyone leaves and he wants to treasure the bloody flame and nurture it and fuel it as a reminder than he is fated to be alone besides having his own company.

 _Uchiwa_ be damned.

Naruto is six, sure, but he already soars with rage and hatred and his wide pools of tears are unbecoming of a monster, a demon.

Naruto is six and he cries no more.


	3. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the age of seven, Naruto curls his bloodstained lips in a frown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: child neglect, child abuse, depression, suicide ideation.

At the age of seven, Naruto, useless to say ‘just Naruto’ still, curls his bloodstained lips in a frown, looking at the dirty and shattered mirror on the orphanage’s bathroom, feeling the red dampness on his shirt staining and dry against his skin.

It all happened so fast, the balled-up hand and the sharp kick and silver-glowing knife. He doesn’t even remember why it happened or who made it happen.

He’s not crying nor sobbing, and the physical pain still doesn’t feel as cold and unforgiving as the one he’s used to feeling when yet another child is adopted and he is left to watch them glow in smiles and leave with their new family, while he stays the same unwanted monster people often overlook like dirt under their feet.

His sunshine hair fades to red on the spiky tips, coiling in dry blood, and his left eye is teary and numb though he still hisses when he goes to touch the lump of tender flesh that becomes more and more purple and blue and even black, blooming to red with the cut under his brow.

The precarious bulb flickers on and off, a hazard smell of burned rubber wires and old smoke, but the light is still enough to make his spinning head a lot dizzier and achier. He feels the telling of nausea building up inside his stomach, eating up the fleshy organs viscerally like the monster inside him. Or maybe the monster he is. He isn’t sure anymore.

He feels like ending this once and for all. He resents the older boys who did this to him though no matter how hard he strains himself he can’t really remember the reason why this happened. So, not having anyone to turn to and blame, he muses to himself it was probably him who made some unforgivable mistake that couldn’t be overlooked for his sake.

Naruto might just have to deal with this on his own, unlike the other kids who have the caregivers kissing scraped knees and tending wounds with white gauze and multicolored band-aids. The tender flesh on his wounds is a sick shade of green and he wonders if it’s because of the shallow graze of the blade over his stomach or because even his skin is tired of covering him and having no one to help sewing it back into place.

He might just have to agree if that’s the case: he too is tired of being himself, lonely and unloved and always so easy to forget.

The child doesn’t cry, no. He hasn’t done that in over a year, after all, and though he remains weak he won’t allow his body to further prove that by wasting time and tears when he has no one to comfort his pain other than himself. So he ignores the voices on the other side of the door and starts cleaning up the bloody mess on his face, the shallow cut that will leave a scar across his stomach— _what would be of him if it hadn’t been as shallow?_ — and the tips of his bloodstained hair.

Maybe he can find some bandages just lying around somewhere without having to break in the nurse’s office while she’s not around. Wouldn’t be the first time he waited for her to leave to take care of his own bruises. No one touches him other than to hurt and he doesn’t think he is ready to see anyone else looking at him with unveiled disgust and an open-expression of hatred and revulsion. God knows he does that enough whenever he sees his reflection.

He is just about to reach to the doorknob, bracing himself to whatever will come his way when he opens the door and faces whoever bangs the door on the other side when his eyes lock with the mark he was bestowed upon by the same mocking gods that made him a monster within a human boy’s skin.

The _uchiwa_ seems to weep, but Naruto weeps no more, after all, and hastily moves his hand away in a closed fist to hide the thing and ignore its existence like everyone else does with his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay safe and respect isolation and quarantine. We live in a society and we must make sure we don't become a danger to other people because not everyone has the same health and financial conditions to be able to deal with the consequences of being infected. Please be responsible and take care of yourselves and others.


	4. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the age of eight, Naruto gets his six whiskers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: child abuse, suicide ideation, depression.

At the age of eight, Naruto gets his six whiskers, the ones on his cheek that remind him of a cunning fox and make it easier for him to be associated with a monster.

It happens during nighttime and the beams of moonlight that twirl their way through the window seem to coward from the group circling the terrified boy with the big wide eyes that don’t cry but scream in the way his covered mouth can’t.

They murmur venomously that no one loves him, _wants_ him, that he’s all by himself like the monster and the demon he is, that in ten years he’ll be out of here legally, though everyone much rather if he did them all a favor and left by himself. They are disgusted by him, by his sunshine blond hair and summer sky eyes and deep bronze skin, by the terror in his eyes that still doesn’t morph into tears, and all the disgust still doesn’t keep them from grabbing him with bruising strength and cover his mouth to keep him from screaming— though _no one_ ever hears, and even if they did they still wouldn’t come to his rescue— as they kick him in the stomach and punch him to the point he’s heaving and trashing against the teenagers to push them away from him.

It’s the longest anyone has ever touched him and he wants this to be over already. He hates himself for sometimes wishing for someone to reach out to him, if only because now that someone did the pain is unbearably visceral and he would be coughing blood and vomit if he had eaten dinner at all.

His mind flashes away from the present, away and away to any other day when his life was surprisingly peaceful with no one to hit his sins away while he screams underwater for someone to save him, even when he knows there’s no way to save a monster like him. He remembers Gaara’s eyes, cold and green like a blade of grass, covered by ice on a winter morning, and his hairless brows and circles so deep one would think were unnatural, and the kanji spelling the word ‘love’ in blood-red like his hair. Gaara left him too, and Naruto considers that maybe it isn’t a good idea to wonder about those who left a hole so big inside of him. Unlike others who only appear in his life to shatter him, Gaara showed him kindness and comfort in the quietude and silence of their shared moments, which made it a lot worst when he too withdrew his hand from Naruto’s and walked away from the darkness surrounding him.

So maybe it really isn’t a good idea to remember Gaara. He’s been doing perfectly fine without him for the past two years, hasn’t he?

But there’s not much else to remember when it comes to good times, to be honest. Maybe Iruka-sensei, but even he stopped volunteering after getting married and getting a full-time job in a school. He was the first adult who heard him cry and actually asked what was wrong, even if he didn’t exactly get an answer before the sobbing boy was pulled away for punishment— and those words went unsaid, for secrets too dark must be kept from outsiders to the system— and Naruto can see the smiling face and the horizontal scar across the bridge of the man’s tanned nose and the patient eyes that always melted in kindness and tender affection when they spotted him, so perfectly clear beneath his closed lids.

The older kids pry his eyes open, keeping his lids up and forcing him to stare as they bring his left hand up. They force his pinky finger to stay ramrod straight, stronger and brute while the horrified child resumes his vain attempt at an escape.

“This mark must be a mistake, no one will ever love a pitiful demon like you.”

And they mean it and he knows they do. Maybe that’s what gets him to stop moving so hard against the firm bodies holding him in place, accepting their words and actions as a punishment and reminder that this is all his fault for being the way he is. If someone is to ask any of the aggressors why they think so they won’t know the answer; and if they ask the victim he won’t be able to tell either. He doesn’t even know how or why it started, just that it did and everyone enjoyed the show so much it became a known truth.

He sees the wicked boy taking a small knife out of his pocket. It glints sharply and menacingly in the rare moments the moonlight decides not to hide anymore, and it gives enough time for Naruto to see how thin and sharp the edge of the blade is. He wonders if he will have to use toilet paper to tend the wound again or if he won’t need toilet paper anymore.

In the dark, he wonders what it feels like to die and leave behind this endless torture.

The pain is sharp like the edge of the knife, hot and searing and he is biting his tongue raw until he feels the metallic taste of wet blood staining his teeth and filling his mouth and sliding down his throat like flames that reach his stomach and he feels nausea and everything is spinning in the darkness and more pain blossoms from his face in not too shallow nor too deep cuts across the tender skin of his cheeks, and the blood trickles down in the way his tears never did again.

They leave. He crashes against the floor right onto his tailbone and pain shoots up like a multitude of poisonous needles piercing into his skin and spine and making him go boneless and numb against the bloody floor.

He can still hear them laugh in malicious murmurs while he stays down, looking to the seemingly endless ceiling all swallowed by darkness, and despite several other boys being awake, none comes to help him, to see if he’s still alive.

Unfortunately, he is, and he much rather if he wasn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ AO3 please do something about g. o. d. because I wanna throw hands and it's only the second time.


	5. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the age of nine, Naruto learns to keep to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mentions of child neglect, mentions of child abuse.

At the age of nine, Naruto learns to keep to himself even more than usual, to hide the scarred mark on his pinky, and how to punch hard enough to break bones and draw blood.

No one should have seen the things he has, felt and experienced the things he has. Yet he is an exception to the rule, a boy who has everything to be sunshine incarnated but has demons feeding off his head, bringing unimaginable pain he can’t bandage away for it blooms inside of his mind in scary voices he can’t just cover his hears and ignore.

He moves from Konoha Orphanage to another orphanage he doesn’t care enough to know the name after his previous one was closed for abuse and poor conditions to keep their children, cases upon cases of signalized teen abusers with no psychological help or supervision to stop them from hurting the younger kids. It isn’t surprising with how much he has lived and with how many scars litter his skin. He just hopes this one will be different.

Naruto doesn’t get close to anybody, not to the pink-haired girl despite how pretty her mint green eyes look when she smiles at him, not to the brunette boy with the ferocious grin that always waves at him when they cross paths in the hallway. Not that they seem menacing in the way the older kids were, but because it’s the exact opposite: because they seem funny and kind and caring and because the two times people were like this to him they ended up leaving him behind in the hole he and others dug up.

So he doesn’t smile back to the pink-haired girl despite how pretty her mint green eyes look when she smiles at him, and neither does he wave back to the brunette boy with the ferocious grin that always waves at him when they cross paths in the hallway.

They are relentless, though.

“What is that in your finger? Did you hurt yourself?” She asks one time, skidding her tray of food on the top of the table he’s sitting by himself. He looks up almost immediately, scared and shocked by having someone to talk to him so casually, so carelessly and with no amount of worry at being seen with a monster. But people here don’t know him, not as they did in Konoha, so maybe he will have a chance to be a demon at plain sight.

He doesn’t answer, just stares unblinkingly like he’s seeing her for the first time. Her smile doesn’t falter, remains bright and open and encouraging and Naruto, still tense like a coil, just waits for her to realize how wrong he is in everything he does, how wrong it is to be speaking to him as she would to a normal person, to someone who deserves love and attention and care. But that’s not him. He’s not someone good enough to be loved or wanted or tended. She’s just wasting her time with him.

“I’m Sakura, by the way. If you ever want to be friends I’m here.”

Naruto doesn’t answer scared and nervous, but Sakura keeps the smile untouchable and has lunch with him, unbothered by the silence.


	6. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the age of ten, Naruto is adopted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: child abuse, mentions of homophobia, mentions of domestic violence, abandonment, anxiety attacks, disassociation, depression.
> 
> (not the heaviest chapter but heavy enough)

At the age of ten, Naruto is adopted, and he is scared and nervous— nauseous because why and how is this happening to _him_?— and still hopeful and eager to see more and know more and to prove himself worthy of receiving love.

But maybe it should be telling enough that he remains _just_ Naruto, no other name, no other identity that makes him a part of a family. It should be telling enough that when he bids Sakura and Kiba goodbye, both look happy and wary, no matter how hard he reassures him he will stay in contact. It should be telling enough that he is ten and people prefer younger kids, even if no one ever wanted him when he was younger.

But he has a family now, right? He can still be happy and love and be loved, right?

_He should’ve known better._

Two months later and he’s back at the orphanage, the clothes on his body stained and cold and heavy and glued to his skin with dry, scratchy blood. His eye is purple and swollen, his arms are heavy as cement and his leg is numb. He hears screaming, voices, and he knows them… doesn’t he?

Naruto is ten years old and he is lost and lonely again.

“Is that you, Naruto? What happened?” It’s the nurse, he remembers her but he never learned her name, never needing to.

“They’re gone.” He states flatly, not understanding where he went wrong, why his foster dad was so mad at him, why he hit him so hard and why he hit his own son, why he hit his own wife. It was just a kiss, his foster brother had only kissed his cheek— barely a kiss even, a simple brush of lips against his skin, if that— and then all hell broke loose and it was him, the monster, the demon, _him_ yet again.

“What happened, Naruto?”

It was his fault, again. He can’t be loved, he _won’t_ be loved because there’s something ugly and vicious and demonic inside of him that makes it impossible for someone to want him near, to want his presence. Because everything he is and does and says is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong wrong w r o n g wrongwrongwrongwrong…

“It’s my fault.”

The woman with the kind honey eyes and light blonde hair tugs him close, and he neither fights her nor hugs back, shocked and hurting yet not crying despite the state he’s in. Sakura and Kiba show up at the door and she’s shouting his name and Kiba holds her back from running straight into him and put her arms around his body and stop him from shaking like leaves against the wind.

The tears that never fall from Naruto’s hollow eyes find their way to the three people looking at the mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest with you and admit I'm only updating every day because I have this whole thing written, otherwise I'd never update EVER again. Unless I have the story complete I can't publish it or even mention it because then I can't write it anymore, which sucks because the moment I start writing something I want to publish it right away.
> 
> I hate myself. 
> 
> Stay safe because Coronavirus isn't a joke. My siblings obviously don't get it. I'll kick their asses when they're home.


	7. Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the age of eleven, Naruto is at school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: anxiety, disassociation, depression.

At the age of eleven, Naruto is at school, Sakura and Kiba by his side and doing their best to keep Naruto from being overwhelmed by the new environment of rowdy kids and bratty older boys, that look like wicked menaces when they turn their eyes to stare at him.

It’s not a surprise to his two friends, he is bright despite the hollowness, the emptiness of his depthless eyes, so blue and dark like the sky at dusk reflected across the ocean. He might be silent and wary and violent in his quietness, like a storm brewing from the sidelines waiting for the right time to ravage everything it can touch, but he is bright and bright and bright like a beacon of contained light, like a ray of sun peeking in between cotton candy clouds.

They still keep him in the middle of them, making sure he’s protected by them and feeling as comfortable as ever. Ever since that day a year ago that they’ve become more and more protective of him, seeing him quieter and quieter, more and more isolated within himself. Watching him with hawk eyes no one would imagine little kids would be able to use. Watch him as he avoids skin to skin contact, how he touches his cheeks when he’s nervous and how he loses himself when staring into the band-aid he has covering his pinky finger every time. Watch him as he avoids being near knives whenever he can avoid it, how he never keeps his backs to someone he doesn’t know, how he barely talks to them even when he’s in the moment and hearing them.

People stare and stare as they walk in the hallways, never seen alone or in any other way than Sakura-Naruto-Kiba or Kiba-Naruto-Sakura. And they stare at the boy with the name of ‘Naruto’ and ‘Naruto’ alone, the orphan with the band-aid around his finger, with the whisker-like scars across his cheeks, with the bright blond hair and big blue eyes and thick tanned skin and silent unheard voice.

And he feels like a demon, a monster still. They stare because they have to make sure he doesn’t cross the line because they have to make sure he doesn’t make mistakes because they have to see whenever he fails, to punish him like so many times in the past. They’re just waiting for him to do the thing he always does, to prove them right, to prove _everyone_ right. He’s the demon and the monster and it’s just a matter of time before they realize that, if they haven’t yet.

Inside his head, the darkness is made of jagged lines and shadows that stretch on for miles and miles, like a cage. The door is open and the monster of self-doubt and anxiety and numbness and hollowness roams free, screaming and shouting at him to keep in check, to make sure not to stare too long, not to eat too much, not to speak too loud or say anything out of line— so he rather not speak at all. It’s a snowball that grows and grows, never stopping to grow, never getting smaller, just bigger and bigger. He is helpless and lost and he’ll never be loved and he’ll never be wanted and he’ll never be needed because everyone was right and he is weak and useless-…

“We can ask them to call Tsunade-sama.” Kiba offers, looking at him with his puppy brown eyes soft and caring. Sakura is there too, clutching her hand to her chest and teary-eyed, unable to help her friend.

“I don’t need help.” There are people who have it worst. “I’m fine.” What _is_ fine? “I don’t need anybody.”

And even if he did, who would help him?


	8. Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the age of twelve, Naruto decides he can’t do this anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: suicide attempt, self-harm (cutting), depression, anxiety, suicide ideation.

At the age of twelve, Naruto decides he can’t do this anymore, he can’t keep dragging himself like normal people do because if there’s one thing he’s not it’s _normal._

He feels tired all the time like his whole body has been submersed to its limit like there are rocks and chains weighing him down. He feels hopeless and useless and there’s no one to help him and he doesn’t reach out to anyone because he just _knows_ no one cares about a monster like him. Like he’s in a dark pit and no matter how hard or for how long he walks and screams and tries to claw his way out, there’s no way for him to leave.

He has locked the bathroom door behind him, it’s dark outside and he remembers when he was five and didn’t know whether or not he should fear it and now scoffs at his naivety, at his annoying innocence, because why should he fear the one thing that he is? Because he feels a lot, too much, so much he can no longer decipher when a feeling ends and another begins and what part of his thoughts belong to him and him alone and not to the voices running outside of the cage made of shadows and blood. He is eleven now, no longer naïve or innocent, way too used to seeing blood staining his skin in blooms of pain that manage to push back the numbness he has grown accustomed to.

The floor and the walls are close and cold and spinning, twirling around him, shifting in and out of focus that becomes blurry when he squints to make the whirl stop. He vaguely remembers he’s twelve and already too old to ever be adopted and in six years he’ll be out of the orphanage with no place to go and no one that will stick around. With his failing grades, he won’t have a job either, and though he is comfortable with seeing his own blood, he doubts he has the willingness and detachment to join a gang or anything like that.

So what will become of him? What future awaits a child like him, called demon and monster for so many years he feels like even if he wasn’t, at first, he now has become one if only to meet their expectations?

Everything is cold and red and blinding. The knife drops from his fingers and clatters to the floor and the sound is clear and painful and he groans feeling the pain subsiding to numbness once more and hating it, hating it- hating it hating hatingithatingithatingit… Hating the band-aid covering the _uchiwa_ he refused to ever look at again, hating the _uchiwa_ itself for sometimes giving him hope, hating himself for being useless and weak and a monster and not being fine when there are people who have it worst, and he could be- _should_ be worst so maybe what he’s feeling is justified, valid somehow.

The sound of the door being kicked open is distant, fading to white noise. Tsunade’s face breaks the gloomy blindness making his head airy and his body light, and he notices that, for the first time in many years, he’s crying. He’s also laughing, gargling as if nothing has ever been this funny, like his life is not running through the deep wound across his left wrist, across his stomach, across his thighs.

He’s pitiful and weak, crying like the lost boy who cried for Gaara at the age of six. Crying the night he tries to end his life, so ironic and poetic in the way tragedies are.

Would they find fitting for a monster to die by its own hand?


	9. Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the age of thirteen, Naruto goes back to school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mentions of recovery (because yes, this can be triggering as well), depression, medication use, suicide ideation, PTSD- A, anxiety.

At the age of thirteen, Naruto goes back to school after a year on a mental institution, being kept back a year but still having Sakura and Kiba by his side, more protective and menacing to outsiders than ever.

He’s still going to therapy, still taking mediation that makes him feel sick and exhausted and make his head ache and his joints crank up and his temper flare and snap like twigs burning, but perhaps he should feel glad he has at least that to feel instead of the unending bottomless hollowness that made his chest big and heavy with echoes of free, vicious voices.

They still whisper at his ear, echo inside his head whenever he’s not distracted enough to push them to the back of his mind. He often loses himself inside himself, away from the big cruel world that made sure he knew how impossible it was for anyone to like him and care for him— and it makes him feel worst because Tsunade held his bleeding body, and Sakura rushed to his side sobbing when he woke up at the hospital, and Kiba cried and filled his hospital gown with snot after he opened his eyes for the first time, and some part of him knows they _care_ but the most part can’t really feel anything that really tells him, with not even a shadow of a doubt, that they _do_.

He’s a mess and never ever left alone at any circumstance, Kiba follows him to the bathroom and Sakura stays by the door throwing dirty glares to whoever chooses to be stupid enough to make fun of her for it, and Kiba has lost his desert for a week to convince the guy sleeping next to Naruto to switch beds and Sakura makes a whole fuss about having to go back to the girl’s dorm instead of being allowed to stay with the boys. It should be comforting but he feels smothered and caged and he just wishes no one had found him bleeding to his death on that dirty orphanage bathroom, allowing him to finally find some peace to his wretched life.

“Tell us what’s on your mind. Use your words.” Sakura pleads, grabbing a stray lock of pastel-pink hair and pushing it behind her ear. He can only shrug because he knows that’s something his psychiatrist has encouraged them to do whenever they feel like he’s lost inside of his own world, but he never once agreed to take part in that.

His knee jerks up unconsciously and he can feel the acidic pain beginning on the joint, making him scrunch his nose and-…

“Talk to us, Naruto.”

“What the fuck do you want me to say? That I’m tired of being on fucking pills and tired of having you two glued to me like you’re my parents? I don’t have parents, Sakura never had! I don’t fucking need you to be my parents damn it. They didn’t want me and honestly fuck them, but you don’t get to pretend like you’re anything to me because you’re not! Is that what you want to hear? That I fucking wish I was dead, that I had died that night? IS THAT FUCKING IT?”

Sakura has tears on her eyes and Kiba stares with a flat look that anyone can see it’s actually hiding something else. But neither of them scream at him, yell or make any movement that indicates they’re about to punish him. They just stare and slowly, ever so slowly, they smile at him like they’re seeing him for the first time like they’re _proud_ and _happy_ he’s talking, he’s there with them.

Naruto chokes on his breath, overwhelmed, overspilling, exploding with emotions like rage and hatred and sadness and loneliness and doubt and wondering just why they’re looking at him like he’s the sun when he was just an absolute prick to people that-… _care_.

The blond trips forward onto Sakura’s arms and she is there to catch him and surround him in her caring, warm, arms letting him sob himself raw and stain her clothes with tears and snot, cooing him gently and tenderly when he apologizes until his throat is sore and dry, and telling him she forgives him, it’s okay, there’s nothing to forgive, that she’s there and she doesn’t hate him. Kiba joins shortly after, there to hug him and tell him he loves him, that he’s his brother, that they’re together to the very end.

Naruto is thirteen when he realizes he doesn’t need any stupid mark carved onto his skin to tell him who his soulmate is. In between Sakura and Kiba’s arms, he knows he’s found them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Medication isn't pretty. I felt awful all the time, always sleepy and nauseous and everything hurt and I was always so DAMN angry. It helped, though. Maybe one day I'll feel ready to recover.
> 
> And this took me long enough but here it is.


	10. Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the age of fourteen, Naruto doesn’t care that he’s just Naruto anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An underage trio gets tattoos with a (responsible) adult's consent. 
> 
> TW: depression, recovery, suicide ideation, PTSD- A.

At the age of fourteen, Naruto doesn’t care that he’s just Naruto anymore, not like he did for most of his life to the point it was one of the jabs he used to hate himself even more.

Since soulmate marks are born in one’s skin and Naruto’s best friends aren’t, unforgivingly, his, he’s decided to take matters on his own hands and get Tsunade no baa-chan’s permission to get some tattoos. He has the Inuzuka’s twin fangs staining the skin on his right shoulder blade red, the Haruno’s white circle painted on his left one. Kiba has the Haruno circle to his right shoulder and an intricate whirl Naruto created himself, in lack of any information regarding his parents and name, to his left. Sakura has Kiba’s fangs on her left scapula and Naruto’s whirl on her right one. A full circle.

For Tsunade, he has the Senju clan symbol in black ink, following the curve of his right arm, and when he showed it to her, the nurse hugged him hard enough to almost break bones and yelled at him for lying to her— in his defense, he didn’t exactly tell her _how many_ tattoos he would get—, before kissing his forehead with exasperated fondness and pride.

To signal his own identity, the one he made for himself, Naruto tattooed the swirl on his stomach. The whirl was painful as it overlapped countless scars of previous battles— and Sakura did her best not to cry but her sorrowful fingers left bruises around Kiba’s arm after seeing the broken pieces of her best friend so openly on display, shocking even the tattoo artist who did his best not to question even if his brows did it for him.

Naruto is still blinded by hatred and self-loathing, so often finding himself in the dark cage and letting the monstrous voices break free. Sometimes he wonders if he’s spent too much time around them to actually want to get rid of their influence by getting better; if these thoughts are theirs or if he’s just seeking validation and support by remaining sick to keep his friends by his side.

Sometimes he wonders if it’s worth it, _was_ worth it to have his bloodied skin bandaged and life kept intact. He doesn’t fear the answer when it screams ‘no’, but he does feel uncomfortable when it’s a murmured ‘yes’ because he’s fourteen and ever since he was five that he has accepted himself as the monster people claimed he was and now it’s hard to look at the mirror and see anything else.

It’s a process, one hard and continuous and with many holes along the way, and sometimes he hesitates and goes back a few steps because he’s unsure that’s really the way he wants to go but, in the end, Sakura is there and Kiba is there too and they always take his hand to walk forward at his own pace. Even if he’s still scared they’ll realize everyone on Naruto’s past was right and that no one should ever feel any ounce of love for him, he dares to _hope_ it will either take a long, long time or just won’t happen at all.

He’s surprisingly alone, just walking to meet up his friends at the library— it’s the first day of school after holidays and they’re helping Naruto since they’ve had his classes already— when he runs into a firm body and freezes in shock and fear and nervousness.

“Na-Naruto?”

He looks up to see the smiling face and the horizontal scar across the bridge of the man’s tanned nose and the kind eyes that always melted in kindness and tender affection when they spotted him, so, _so_ real and there, in front to him, preventing him from falling.

“I- Iruka-sensei!?”

And there he is, the tender man that noticed his weeping and held him while the other caregivers pretended not to hear, not to see, not to _know_ he was there, begging for attention, for someone to tell him whatever he did wrong, whatever he could do to fix things, make amends, whatever he could do to make them _like_ him.

But Iruka-sensei never treated him differently, always talked to him and to Gaara like he did to the other kids and the memory, despite painful and enough to make him break and go back to the dark hole of his own head, still manages to make him smile.

Even if some people are bound to leave, whatever belongs to him will return.


	11. Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the age of fifteen, Naruto is no longer just Naruto anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An underage boy gets even more tattoos, still with a, now totally, responsible adult's consent.
> 
> TW: mentions of child abuse, mentions of child neglect, mentions of a suicide attempt, mentions of homophobia (not an ideal marriage? bruh -.-").

At the age of fifteen, Naruto is no longer just Naruto anymore, much to his surprise and dread— because he’s been almost here before, and it was so different yet so similar he finds himself shaking and unable to talk.

He has names, _other_ names, names he got by being adopted by Iruka— no longer Iruka-sensei— and Kakashi, both bearing the name of Hatake. Soon the Hatake symbol joins the collection, after a long time convincing Iruka of the meaning, of the importance of that to him and finally having his approval, and it is black against the bronze skin on the inside of his right arm, just above the sip of his elbow, a lozenge containing nine equal lozenges within the space.

After running into each other, Iruka, who had heard of the Konoha scandal even if he was no longer volunteering there at the time, questioned Naruto of all the things he couldn’t when the blond was a child and the young-adult still believed in the fairness of heart on people who ignored crying children. Questioned him of the bruises the director passed as him getting into fights, of the cold looks on the caregivers whenever they needed to do anything for him, the shared hatred on every kids’ eyes.

To most of the questions, Naruto’s answer would be a trembling ‘I don’t know’.

But Naruto told him more of his life, of how he got the shallow scar on his stomach, just below his left rib, when he was seven and had no one to bandage the bloody cut; of how he got the six whiskers across his cheek and the white line dividing the _uchiwa_ in two, at the tender age of eight; of how, when he was ten, someone gave him hope and crushed it so soon, leaving much more than just emotional damage, like the scars on his brow and leg and arms, of shattered glass broken by his foster father. He tells him of the self-inflicted scars, the jagged and deep lines he carved onto his left wrist, onto the already so scarred skin across his stomach, staining his thighs with lines of stitched-back skin, all of this when he was twelve and exhausted and so lost within himself, the cage where he now keeps his voices.

And Iruka cried, hugged him and cried and kissed his temples, his hair, imagining the tiny boy with the wide blue eyes, the pools of diamonds and sapphires and a depthless ocean reflecting the sky, stained, married with patches of his own red blood, trembling and questioning whatever he did wrong for people to be so, so _cruel_ to him. And then he cried harder because he knew something was wrong and yet still accepted whatever excuses he was given because he left without trying harder to help him, a _child_.

Sakura and Kiba, alerted by how long Naruto was taking, searched for him on the corridors, peeking through the open classroom doors, and froze when they saw a man hugging, holding Naruto and not being screamed at and pushed away, but accepted even if Naruto’s arms were sluggish and fallen by his sides.

Later that day, the four of them, and later Kakashi, were at the orphanage, Iruka relentless and tenacious and doing everything he possibly could to ensure Naruto would be adopted. Despite being told it would be hard and slow, despite being told his marriage wasn’t ideal, despite being told Naruto’s record would make things a lot more troubling, Iruka didn’t care.

Eventually, five months later given Kakashi’s job and Iruka’s history with children, arduous battles and arguments that seemed endless at the time, Naruto finally got a home, a family, another name.

He still visits Sakura and Kiba, both of which also got a home shortly after, loving parents and families who make sure they’re getting the help every child who grew up in the system should get. They’re still best friends, walk together in the school corridors and Naruto is still kept in the middle of the two. Iruka, apparently, teaches at their school along with Kakashi, and now Naruto is no longer as shy, as quiet, and his eyes are no longer as hollow, as empty.

Later at night, when Iruka is tucking him in, pulling up the comforter and kissing his forehead, Naruto confides in him, murmurs in the quietness of his room so silently that if Iruka wasn’t that close he wouldn’t hear it.

“Even if you couldn’t adopt me, you’d get a mark for at least trying.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five more days and Serendipity will be over :((((  
> I'm not crying, geez, why would I?


	12. Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the age of sixteen, Hatake Naruto gets more names.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: deaths, PTSD- A, mentions of child neglect, recovery.

At the age of sixteen, Hatake Naruto gets more names, two other names that make him cry and this time he’s not nervous but filled to the brim with happiness and relief and a sourness like no other.

It’s his birthday, October 10th, and it’s possibly the first time he’s celebrating it. Tsunade is there, along Sakura and Kiba and their families; so is Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji, three addictions to their group— with Ino’s relentless sarcasm, Shikamaru’s raw intellect, and Chouji’s unending kindness, it was relatively easy for the three of them to grow into each other’s skin—, and despite Naruto saying he didn’t want anything but their presence, Iruka and Kakashi still give him a thin present, like a book, wrapped in navy blue and with an obnoxious orange bow.

“It’s not much…” Iruka starts, tanned cheeks stained pink and a bashful hand scratching the skin on the back of his neck, and Kakashi doesn’t openly smile but stares attentively to see every single reaction that crosses Naruto’s face once he unwraps the gift and sees what’s inside.

_Name: NAMIKAZE-UZUMAKI, Naruto_

_Affiliation: NAMIKAZE, Minato & UZUMAKI, Kushina_

Naruto chokes on his saliva, on his own breath, on his tears, on the blunt force hitting him straight on his chest. He stares deeply and shocked at the sheet of paper with his history, the one Konoha said it didn’t know besides his birthdate, besides getting him the day he turned one year old. His mom died at his birth and his father had a car accident the year after, and they didn’t abandon him, they didn’t leave out of their own choice.

They _died_. He wasn’t rejected by his own family, he could’ve been happy with a family and all those lies spat by the caregivers were just justifications for their own poor actions towards him, a _child_ whose parents died before he even had the chance to know them.

He’s not so despicable even his parents— Minato and Kushina because they have _names_ that Naruto never knew but now, _now he knows_ and they were _real_ and a part of him he neglected for _so long_ — decided to leave him behind.

Naruto looks up to Iruka’s teary eyes, to Kakashi’s small smile that tugs on the corners of his lips, under the mask, but doesn’t grow past that, and then he urges his feet forward and falls limply to Iruka’s chest, surrounded by his warmth, by his arms, staining his clothes with searing tears, filling fists with his shirt and pushing his nose against his chest. His heart feels like it's about o burst inside his chest, filled with fire and anger and rage and still with some kind of tender affection and pity and gratitude and he’s _drowning_ , _soaring_ and _free-falling_. He pities himself for the life that was bestowed upon him, pities his poor parents that didn’t have a chance to live and cherish time with their son, and is grateful for Iruka and for Kakashi and Sakura and Kiba and Tsunade no baa-chan and Ino-Shika-Cho and...

“Thank you.” It’s all he manages to say, to force out of his tangled tongue while he sobs and cries and loses himself to unimaginable pain and sorrow. Iruka clutches him harder, kisses his hair, rubs his backs.

“You deserved better, baby, you deserved _so much better_.”

This time, after learning how to trust and open himself to others, Naruto can agree to that.

He really did deserve better.


	13. Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the age of seventeen, Hatake Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto has eight marks and countless scars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mentions of past child abuse.

At the age of seventeen, Hatake Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto has eight marks and countless scars and he’s seen and experienced things in a way not many others have.

He decides he’s been bitter for far too long, ran by hatred and despair for far too long, and has hated and feared the person behind the mark for far too long. 

He doesn’t hesitate to rip off the band-aid anymore, revealing the pale _uchiwa_ still staining his skin in red and white, still contrasting against his bronze finger and cut in half by a diagonal scar from when he was eight and the older kids decided to mark him in more ways. His eyes always find their way to the uncovered skin, after so many years of hiding it, of pretending it was nothing, of trying to forget the fact that there is someone out there destined to meet him and make his heart soar within his chest with blossoming love.

It’s the first time either Sakura or Kiba see it, and their eyes widen in shock and affection because he’s trusting them and loving himself enough to admit to the world he too deserves to meet his soulmate and be loved. They hug him in cue, and he hugs back just as fiercely, bursting at the worn seams keeping him together.

He still longs to see Gaara again, the first person he ever showed his mark to, the person who first befriended him and that he’s never seen again after he was adopted by the family with the red kanji for ‘gratitude’ on their foreheads. The thought is a whisper that sometimes finds itself leaving the space in the back of Naruto's mind, the one he reserved for the better parts of his tragic past, and it hits Naruto unexpectedly, sometimes when he's drinking his mocha or when he's finishing his ramen, and sometimes when he awakes surrounded by feverish heat of harsh nightmares and remembers wild red hair and restless ice-green eyes and the way he'd hold his hand during the night, when neither found any sleep, at the tender age of three, four and five.

The opportunity presents itself when Naruto’s shift ends and he’s leaving the Akimichi family restaurant by the back alley, as usual, and when he gets to the main street he sees a boy his age and they stop, starring surprised and shocked and unable to speak, to breathe.

Gaara still looks the same, if only older, with the red kanji on his forehead long gone— after all, Gaara has met his platonic soulmates, being aromantic and asexual—, and the skin covered by raging waves of blood-red hair. The circles beneath his ice-green eyes remain dark but not as much, not as bruised, and the light that churns within his orbs isn’t as haunted and vengeful, now subsided and calm, like he too has found peace within himself to move forward.

His lips part in surprise, eyes widen in shock, and Naruto is just the same, staring like there is no one but them like time has been frozen and the world has faded so they’re the only ones standing in the ruins. Is there anything to be said? Any way they can reconnect other than by the strength of the bond formed by loneliness and hopeless despair? Can Naruto, can Gaara, can they move past their memories if they are to be friends again, or will their presence in each other's lives be the finger pulling the trigger that will send them back all the way back to the beginning of the recovery process?

“You look good.” Naruto starts, a teary smile of someone who has missed his best friend after eleven years of not seeing each other— trembling and afraid of the outcome of this encounter and still not wanting to let go of him now that they've found each other again— and Gaara, on cue, takes a step forward, hesitant and in baby steps like a newborn doe. Perhaps he’s afraid this is a mirage, an illusion. He didn’t think he’d see Naruto, not alive, not when he still has nightmares of his best friend’s bloodied skin, swollen eyes with crying and bruises, purple and black marrying in overlaps of strong fingers gripping him. Not when he still remembers clearly the darkness overwhelming the blue and the sunshine, killing them with a morbid clutch. He's been better for years, years that he doubts Naruto has had, and it still keeps him awake the echo of the terrified screams he heard, like they're etched, burned into his brain the same way his soulmate mark was, but unable to fade.

But Naruto alive and looks well, better than expected than _hoped_ , and his heart is bursting because it's a bittersweet relief: Naruto is well but it's not thanks to Gaara. And the guilt makes him unable to fully meet him in the eyes to he focuses on the trails of ink peeking from beneath the blond's sleeve.

“So do you.”

Naruto smiles, and this time there’s nothing haunted there, no shade of darkness or swirl of hopelessness. Maybe it’s sort of sad, of lost, but it’s still bright like rays of sunshine and sandy beaches in the summer. It's not as blurred and bloody around the edges, softer and mended, and it eases the clutch of self-blame eating away Gaara, so he looks up, no longer at the ink but at the smiling face, at the scars that weren't there when he left, at the eyes so bright no one would ever be able to know just how much Naruto has been through just by looking at them, and he's all the more aware of how _strong_ Naruto is to be standing so tall and proud and true to himself despite the constant terror of his past. Gaara doesn't need to know all of it, he knows his own experience, heard of the Konoha scandal too, and he's not dumb enough to assume those five years they've known each other were as far as the neglect and abuse went.

Gaara doesn't need to know all of it, but Gaara knows enough, _more_ than enough.

“We should meet, someday.” Gaara agrees, he can't think of any other way this will go from here, can't imagine going back to his life forgetting the fact he's talked to Naruto again, has confirmed he's alive and well, everything considered. He finds it easier to breathe, even if the clutch is there, the prickling behind his eyes, the dampness at the beginning of his lashes.

“We should.”

It took them years to be where they are now, and though they don't know everything they know just enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ma dudes, I'm a certified mess I swear.
> 
> So like, we're socially distancing and shit so no school y'know, but we still have assignments to do and honestly I'm kinda grateful because that way I can totally get absorbed in school work and distract myself from panicking (not that I mind dying, y'know, just don't wanna get sick and contaminate my family because that's truly what scares me). But like, my Portuguese teacher emailed us like 5/6 days ago with an assignment due to the 9th and I totally took a shit on it, not even bothering with it and then I get this text from my friends asking me if I've finished it and I was like ????????? tf bruh ????????
> 
> And here I was, hoping I'd finish everything, and at last, and would just have to drown myself in fanfiction in order to survive and hope this all to be over by the time I'd start college. Guess not hm. I'd totally be fucked if I hadn't been warned about it and if this doesn't prove I'm useless I don't know what else does lmao
> 
> BUT WHAT I WANTED TO REALLY SAY IS (jeez, what a big ass rant, I'm so sorry) IS that I probably won't be publishing once a day from now on??? I don't know, I'm trying really, but I wanna finish those assignments and kiss school work goodbye for a while and I have tons of WIPs to finish and all.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sinkingataegina) or [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/alexasayyeet) the second one has a list of everything I've written so far in other platforms, I reblog it once in a while, and the first one is more personal-ish? Yeah guys, that's that.
> 
> Stay safe!
> 
> EDIT: AND APPARENYLY I ALSO HAVE A HISTORY ASSIGNMENT TO DO JUST KILL ME ALREADY.


	14. Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the age of eighteen, Hatake Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto has no idea what he’ll do with his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mentions of past trauma, mentions of past child abuse, mentions of suicide ideation, mentions of depression, anxiety.

At the age of eighteen, Hatake Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto, the boy with eleven tattoos and a soulmate mark on his left pinky finger, has no idea what he’ll do with his life.

Sakura wants to be a doctor, Kiba wants to be a vet like the rest of his family, Ino is taking over her family’s flower shop and Chouji will continue on the family’s restaurant. Shikamaru is a genius but wants to take a gap year before going to college, but whatever he chooses will be fine because Naruto is sure he will enter whatever university he chooses.

Only he, Shikamaru and Gaara remain out of college, himself one year behind and Gaara unwilling to follow with his studies, at least for now.

“Do whatever makes you happy and doesn’t feel like a drag,” Shikamaru says in between naps and cloud-gazing, bored but attentive in the least. Naruto rubs his face because that's _exactly_ the problem: he doesn’t know what makes him happy, never had time to think about that before when he was wondering if he would die by his own hand or someone else’s, if he would still be alive by the time they kicked him out of the orphanage or if he would drop out of school at some point. Despite being in a stable life for the past three years, he can’t erase the rest of his life no matter how much he would like to. He can’t forget how he never thought he would have a life as wonderful as it is now, as fulfilled even with all the chaos and traumas he endured.

And he can’t really blame Shikamaru for treating it like it’s as easy as it is to someone else, but it still leaves a bittersweet taste in his tongue, like resentment. 

Shikamaru sighs and sits up— finally staring at him rather than the moving clouds, kindly yet firmly focusing Naruto’s big wondering eyes— and the perpetual drop of his lids, out of boredom and laziness, tenses to a solid glare that seems to deconstruct everything Naruto has and is.

“What do you want to do?”

“My grades are shit.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

Naruto remembers the difference Iruka did when he volunteered, the difference the new orphanage did when it treated him and the other kids differently, _better_. He spent most of his life in an orphanage, living with tons of other kids, and his childhood plays a big role in his choices and in the way he treats people now: one side of him tells him to treat everyone kindly and to be different than the ones who made him feel like shit, and the other side of him wants him to be as bitter and as bad as his aggressors were to make sure no one gets the upper hand over him— and this is something he still has issues with, something he still struggles to choose what path is best. So he knows what needs to be done, only that he's unsure whether or not he’ll be able to do anything about it.

“I want to help, to make a difference.”

And he falters for just a second, hesitates just in the beginning. It’s like a curtain of darkness has been lifted from his eyes, allowing him to see endless opportunities and choices for him to choose and take. He doesn’t want to be useless or work for the money without getting more out of it, without having some kind of emotional reward or gift to someone else who needs it just as much. He wants to be the person he didn't have.

“I want to work with kids.”

Shikamaru's smile is almost imperceptible, and he feels light and infected by the sudden shift on Naruto’s mood, the brightness, and eagerness to leave his legacy in the world.

After all, if there’s one thing Naruto loves more than ramen and his people, it is to make marks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually managed to finish the assignment????? Since the History one doesn't really have a deadline (because teachers & clear orders over email don't really get along APPARENTLY) I'll probably pick it up someday maybe, just to make sure I won't delete every bit of school information during social distancing.   
> Stay safe!


	15. Nineteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the age of nineteen, Hatake Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto enters college.

At the age of nineteen, Hatake Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto enters college alongside Shikamaru, hell-bent on making a difference.

He wants to have the chance to be the person he lacked in his childhood, the person he needed to be there and help him and other kids in the same situation as he was, to prevent the things that happened to him to happen to anybody else.

So he wants to be a social worker.

He had cried and spent many nights trying to overcompensate for the first years of high school when his head was a mess and his grades not much better, going from C’s and D’s to B’s and some A’s with Shikamaru and Gaara’s help and Iruka and Kakashi’s unwavering support.

He’s in the same college as Shikamaru and Kiba, and the boys will be living together in a shared apartment near campus, under the promise of behaving, studying and not partying too hard. Kiba crosses his fingers behind his backs, and unlike Shikamaru who can only roll his eyes and murmur ‘troublesome’ under his breath, Naruto hits his shoulder playfully and promises to do his best to force Kiba to study, much to his mother’s happiness.

Naruto is giddy in a way he’s never been before, doing something he never expected he’d ever do. He often hoped he would find someone to love him but never imagined he would get to love himself and find many people who did without bearing his mark on their pinky, and never imagined he would get to go to college and have a supportive family giving him their hand for him to hold when things got tough.

It’s all a new experience to him, and he’s panicking slightly when he stares at the gigantic building on campus under Kiba and Sakura’s playful mocking, his pink-haired best friend there to support him while Kiba shows him around the campus before the real first day.

“Maybe you’ll meet your soulmate here.” She winks at him, taking the pink blossoming on his cheeks like a good sign that Naruto no longer feels the need to hide and fight the thought that someone can love him without ending in disaster.

“Maybe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tomorrow is the end :((


	16. Twenty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the age of twenty, Hatake Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto feels his left pinky tingling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SaSuKeEeEeEeEeEeE

At the age of twenty, Hatake Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto feels his left pinky tingling.

It’s a warm sunny day, the sky is clear and the sun is out after weeks of intensive rain, and Naruto is just making his way out of his last class to the Akimishi restaurant, where he works part-time as a waiter, when it all starts. He feels the warmness on his finger but, at first, pays it no mind, ignores it easily after so many years training his brain to pretend there’s nothing there— countless times did he force himself to look the other way, just as many when he wasn't strong enough and ended up lost in the band-aid covering it—, and goes on his way easily and alienated to what will happen that day.

But then it grows, as he walks to the restaurant while reading his class notes at the same time, grows until it’s searing without being painful, but still hot enough to elicit a reaction out of him, a gasp, a tilt of his head, a too-wide-eyed gaze. The skin there is oversensitive, not all around the finger but specifically under the soulmate mark of the _uchiwa_ he was bestowed with, a telltale of something Naruto dreads and hopes to find out at the same time. He’s scared and eager and a part of him wants to run away while the other wants to run forward and his chest is bursting with the panoply of mixed feelings.

He’s denied himself of accepting the fact he can, _deserves_ to meet his soulmate for so long— for as long as he remembers knowing what the mark means— that the thought and the possibility of today being _the_ day leaves a bittersweet taste on his tongue and terrifies him to the point sweat crawls coldly against his skin and he ignores the notes to stop dead on his tracks. People pass by him, most not sparing a second to stare at his frozen body, at his wide eyes, parted lips, heaving chest. He's as invisible as he was at the age of five, but this time he isn't left hopeless and sorrowful at the taste of being disregarded.

“Dobe, you’re in the way.”

The voice is deep and clear and the prickling gets worse before it stops, fading to nothing just as suddenly as it began. Naruto turns back to see the man who spoke and is surprised to find a guy about his age, about his height, made of darkness and angles and with inky eyes that don’t leave his face for a moment after they meet, and getting lost on the pale, blank face, Naruto finds it easier to breathe, as if he's grounded now, no longer bearing a light-aired head.

The world fades, it’s nothing but white noise behind them, around them, just a background to give them something else to stand than the void. The guy's eyes are firm and unyielding and they flash with something akin to recognition but don’t move past Naruto’s to confirm the presence of a mark on his pinky finger, a challenge clear to see who’s the first to move the gaze away and they've just met.

“Go around, teme, dattebayo!”

And Naruto doesn’t want to lose either, to stop staring at the depth of the night sky on the black swirl of his eyes, but he wants to see what’s the mark, where it is, if it’s _t_ _here_ , if it’s fading because they’ve ( _f i n a ll y_ ) _met_.

It’s challenging and nerve-wrecking because Naruto doesn’t want to back down and neither does the dazzling stranger, but both men’s minds are blaring for them to just look down and confirm their doubts, marking the beginning of a new journey, something neither expected. Naruto, sick to his stomach with anxiety, the bars of the cage inside his chest trembling under the pressure and easing the clutch around the voices, letting him hear the morose screams that tell him the other man is just dragging because he _knows_ just what Naruto has been through, the fact he’s broken and no longer whole, that the cracks of his history are filled with ink in deep gashes of color. And he’s too scarred not to be scared that this is just another one of those things that happen to him whenever his life is going alright, just to remind him that after every high there’s a low, and he isn't someone who's been made to be happy for long.

The man, with those piercing eyes of ink and night, sighs impatiently and finally looks down, Naruto just shakily showing the interior of his left pinky, revealing the scarred _uchiwa_ mark he was born with, blazing red and white against the golden hue of his skin, the whitish glow of the scar, the tan mark that resembles a ring.

“Sh-show me yours…?” It’s supposed to be a request, but Naruto’s voice is oddly quiet and high-pitched and it wavers and cuts his words in half and it gets out as a question rather than a demand, weak and pathetic to his self-critical ears.

The man snorts and smirks, yet there’s something hollow and shaky beneath the gesture as if he too bears some weight on his backs— some fear within his heart—, lifting his hand to show the red Uzumaki whirl on the inside of his left pinky, just beginning to fade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes this is the end, but this is a series so you'll see more of these boys.
> 
> And yes this took me a while because (and no excuses) I've been binge watching "The Untamed" and the anime and the visual novel and the novel (hahaha, who wants a Wei Ying x Lan Zhan fanfiction, yeah?) and I'm hooked.  
> That's it, that's the main reason.


End file.
